


In the Background

by orphan_account



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, All-Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gift Fic, One Shot, PTSD, Romance, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, gratuitous Southernisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 11:05:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jasper meets Alice. Everything falls apart and comes together, all at once.</p><p>All-human, arguably in-character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Background

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grrlinterrupted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grrlinterrupted/gifts).



> Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Thanks to grrlinterrupted for prompting and beta'ing, and HoochieMomma for beta'ing. The old-timer quote is from Clancy I.

**~*O*O*~**

" _ **If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."**_

_**-Dorothy Parker** _

**~*O*O*~**

Jasper was going to freeze before the bus got to Mercer Island. He'd taken the line from Sea-Tac and switched at some point to get onto the one that would bring him to his destination, but he was so tired he couldn't remember when or where the transition had occurred. On the one hand, the cold kept him awake. On the other, he didn't really want to see the world around him. Seattle in November was cold, overcast, and far too green for a boy from West Texas. Out of habit, he checked to make sure his guitar was still where he'd left it, shifting his boot to one side so that it would bump the case. That thing was his security blanket in more ways than one.

At last, he stepped down onto Mercer Way, duffel bag over one shoulder and guitar case clutched in the opposite hand, looking up and down the misty road for the right address. After half a block's trudge, he came to a graveled drive whose mailbox bore the same numbers he'd long since memorized. The pale shingled house barely showed through the evergreen trees surrounding it.

After another trek that probably felt longer than it actually was, he came to a covered walkway that led to a pair of French doors. Digging his phone out of his pocket, he checked the time: 6:55 a.m. Well, Mrs. McCarty was expecting him. Tentatively, he rapped on one glass pane.

Almost instantly, the chandelier hanging from the ceiling switched on. A few seconds later, he heard, "Coming," and then high heels rapidly approaching across hardwood floors. The lock clicked back, and the door swung open to reveal a suspiciously blond woman stylishly attired in an expensive-looking dress, violet-blue eyes unfaded despite the age the faint wrinkles beneath her makeup gave away. Her thin eyebrows rose minutely. "Yes?"

"I'm Jasper Whitlock, ma'am." This couldn't be Rosalie McCarty, who his father had told him was in her seventies. Maybe this woman was her daughter. "I think Mrs. McCarty is expecting me?"

"You think correctly, young man." She stepped back and to the side. "Please, come in. I'm Mrs. McCarty."

Immobile with surprise, he said stupidly, "Rosalie McCarty?"

"Yes. Come in, there's a chill in the air."

Obediently, Jasper stepped across the threshold, and instantly felt poorer for it. The furnishings weren't lavish, but they did speak of understated wealth in a way his father's money could never seem to purchase from interior designers. Of course, Jasper had no money coming in lately, either old or new, but he didn't usually pay attention to the fact until it was thrust in his face, like now.

Searching for something to break the silence, he said, motioning to the canvas on the easel next to the china cabinet, "That's a very nice painting, ma'am. Did you do it yourself?"

"As a matter of fact, no. My daughter paints." Turning, she led the way to the stairs. "Your room is up here. It has its own attached bathroom, and I will expect you to keep both reasonably clean. My maid comes four days a week but I won't ask her to clean your space. If, as your father tells me, this is to be a fresh start for you, then you must learn to be self-sufficient."

Actually, Jasper already knew how to be self-sufficient. Six months in a locked-door Salvation Army rehab program would do that for a man. It also taught that same man humility, though, so he kept his mouth shut as he followed Mrs. McCarty to the second storey.

"You may help yourself to anything in the kitchen at breakfast, as long as it is food normally considered appropriate for the meal," she continued, heels muffled now as she strode upon the Turkish rugs in the hallway. "My chef Lori prepares lunch and dinner, a week's worth at a time, and you'll be responsible for reheating dinner each night and making sure it's served between six and six-fifteen each night. You will take your dinner with me in the main dining room, which I'll show you later. You may eat your other two meals in your room, as long as you bring your dishes back to the dishwasher, or in the breakfast nook. "

Opening a door at last, she flicked on the switch for the overhead light, which was attached to a ceiling fan. "I expect you to be at work at or before nine o'clock, to take two fifteen-minute breaks and one forty-five minute lunch, and to wrap up your work, excluding equipment storage, no earlier than six. The exception will be on the days when you receive mental health services, as your father has informed me that the Veterans Administration in its infinite wisdom only has hours between eight o'clock and four-thirty." Jasper flinched a little at this matter-of-fact acknowledgment of his messed-up head, but she gave no sign of noticing. "Given your history, again as conveyed to me by your father, I assume you'll understand why I insist that there be no alcohol consumption for the duration of your stay, and illegal drugs are naturally not an option for you if you wish to remain. Cigarettes and other legal forms of tobacco don't fall under that stricture. I do however ask that you restrict your smoking to outside and place the butts in a trash receptacle."

"Yes ma'am." Jasper kept his smile hidden. He had a feeling it wouldn't be appreciated.

"I imagine that you are exhausted after your trip. I won't ask you to begin work until tomorrow. You can have all of today to settle in." She looked around one final time, as if to be certain that the room met with her personal standards, and then nodded once, sharply. "It's very nice to meet you, Mr. Whitlock. I hope your visit here proves… profitable for us both."

Profitable. It had been so long since Jasper profited off of anything that he almost didn't recognize the sound of the word. "So do I, Mrs. McCarty."

She walked out and shut the door behind her without another word. Jasper immediately exhaled, slumping a little. Something about the old lady made him want to stand at military attention even though he hadn't assumed the posture in years.

Jasper had a routine when he arrived at a new place, no matter if he was staying one night or for an indefinitely long period of time: examine the immediate environment (taking note of exits and possible entrances as well), unpack all of his belongings (he had a system for his drawers that involved color coordination and a specific method for folding shirts), and head out to secure the perimeter. He might be sober, and he might be legally medicated, but he still had PTSD. Despite Mrs. McCarty's invitation to the contrary, he didn't expect to be sleeping anytime soon.

Truly noticing his surroundings for the first time, he took in the satin bedspread—solid green—the antique nightstand with custom drawer handles—beech—the dresser and desk—also beech—and the same hardwood floors that prevailed in the rest of the house. The parts that he'd seen, anyway. The paintings on the wall were each very different: one was an Impressionistic watercolor of what looked like a kayak race on a becalmed lake; another depicted a bear, surrounded by pine trees, with striking realistic detail; a third was a surreal, malformed silhouette of a human body backlit by rays that held more green than gold. Somehow they belonged together, even though they didn't match in the slightest. Another rug—cream and pale green—covered the floor beneath the bed.

Jasper set his duffle bag down on the mattress and took out his toothbrush and other grooming things, then wandered into the attached bathroom. When he pushed the dimmer switch up, the chandelier overhead illuminated more luxury: twin sinks, a bidet, and a Jacuzzi-style tub in addition to the more normal furnishings of toilet and cabinetry. Thick towels hung from a rack that was… plugged in? Jasper searched for and found a switch; when he flipped it, the rack almost immediately began to heat. Rolling his eyes and chuckling, he switched it back off and started arranging his toiletries on the marble sink.

Once the process of unpacking had been completed, he texted his brother to let him know he had got in all right. He knew Edward would probably let their father know, but he didn't mind anymore. He'd given up on being pissed off because Edward wanted to ride the fence between Jasper and Wade Whitlock's strained relations. Edward had aspirations in the political arena, and it suited his purposes to maintain ties with Wade. Jasper could understand that, and he valued his friendship with Edward far too much to force him to pick a side. Plus, he knew that Edward would pick himself, which meant picking Wade. After he got Edward's response, he shoved his phone into his pocket, grabbed his lighter and cigarettes, and headed out to inspect the house's vulnerabilities.

Pacing in the foggy chill, dragging smoke into his lungs, he took note of the doors, windows, and other possible entrances and exits, then eyeballed the distance between the house and its privacy fence. Far too many trees, far too few lights, too many shadows in which an assailant could hide. Rationally he knew that there would be no assailant, and that probably the closest thing to a threat would be a neighbor's escaped teacup poodle. Rationality held no sway over emotions.

Jasper made the last turn that took him back to the driveway, peering up at the overhang to judge whether or not someone could use it to climb into one of the second-story windows.

A girl's laughing voice spoke next to him. "Are you planning your—"

She stopped because he had grabbed her wrist, twisted her arm, and thrown her to the ground. Eyes so dark they were nearly black widened, overwhelming her tiny, fey countenance. Oddly, she didn't seem afraid, but lay relaxed on the grass.

Almost as quickly as he'd reached to fling her, Jasper released her from his grip and backed away, hands up and babbling in horror. "Oh fuck, I'm so fucking sorry, I swear to God I didn't mean to do that, holy shit, are you okay?"

One slender hand, decorated with intricate dark red designs, rose to caress her opposite arm, but she seemed unperturbed. "I'm fine. Are _you_ okay?" She didn't try to approach as he stumbled away, but she didn't run screaming either. Instead, she stood and pulled a large wheeled suitcase up against her foot, then sat it upright.

Jasper blinked, took a drag on his cigarette to attempt to disguise the way his whole body shook, and tried to joke his way out of it. "I'm guessing it's pretty clear that I'm not." His tone of voice gave him away, though. He couldn't keep the horror from tainting his words.

"That's true," she replied thoughtfully, and he wheezed out a laugh. She smiled in response. "I'm Alice. Who're you? Do you live with my mom?"

"Your mom?" Jasper glanced back at the house as if it would provide sudden revelation into Alice's family tree.

"Rosalie McCarty. She's my mother."

Alice couldn't be more than twenty-two or thereabouts. Mrs. McCarty would have given birth to her in her late forties or early fifties. Unusual for someone her age. "Oh. Then yes. I live with your mom, as of this morning. My name's Jasper Whitlock."

She burst into laughter, ringing like the peals of a bell, which then subsided when he stared at her uncomprehendingly. "Oh. Oh, my God. You were serious? That's really your name? Now I'm sorry." Her delicate eyebrows quirked with mortification. "All appearances to the contrary, it's nice to meet you, Jasper." She turned in a move so graceful it looked like a pirouette, gliding to the French doors and using a key to open them because she couldn't know he'd left them unlocked. Jasper heard her calling her mother just before his cigarette burned to the filter and singed his fingers. With a curse, he bent to stub it out and then stood, staring after Alice as her shock of black hair blended into the shadows.

Life settled into a comfortable pattern soon after. Jasper found plenty of work around the house to keep occupied, especially in the landscaping department. He was more than half-tempted to carve the smaller evergreens into the shapes of musical instruments with the electric hedge clippers. Only the knowledge of Mrs. McCarty's certain icy wrath held him back.

He couldn't figure out what Alice did for a living. He felt certain that Rosalie McCarty's daughter would never be allowed to live solely from the proceeds of her inevitable trust fund. However, Alice seemed to come and go at all hours, with no schedule to govern her days and nights. She wore only haute couture, but she wore it carelessly, the way Jasper wore his guitar when he slung its strap over his neck: so much a part of her that she didn't think to take special care. He watched her in fascination for a couple of weeks and then forgot about her because she made him happy, considering her a part of his new home, which despite his dourest expectations made him happy too.

Seattle had a kickass public transportation system that took Jasper anywhere he wanted. Most often, he wanted to go to the University District, but he sometimes on the weekends would go to Pike Place and browse through the stalls. He never found anything he wanted to buy, because he had no one for whom to purchase a gift, but he enjoyed getting out and people-watching.

Once Thanksgiving passed and the rain really set in, Jasper began remodeling one of the bedrooms on orders. He got the impression that the project was more to keep him from getting bored than because Mrs. McCarty actually cared about whether or not the wallpaper was ten years old. He was okay with that, though. The manual labor proved a nice distraction from the mindfuck that was PTSD treatment. Being forced to talk through traumatic things he had witnessed while in Iraq that might possibly have contributed to his condition was beyond nerve-wracking. Sometimes on the way home, on the bus, he would have to fight the urge to scream at the driver to slow down; forty miles an hour was two times too fast, didn't he know the pile of brush on the side of the road could be concealing an IED? Those were the days on which he was especially grateful for the repetitive motions of steaming and stripping the walls.

The week before Christmas, Jasper found his work lifting up the planks to replace the sub-flooring interrupted by a petite pair of Jimmy Choos. Looking up from where he knelt, he beheld Alice, a mischievous smile lighting her pale face. "You've forgotten about me because you're happy that I'm here," she accused him. "You've let me fade into the background because I fit in with this place."

It was so true, and so insightful, that Jasper couldn't come up with a rejoinder. Rubbing the back of his head, he gave her a sheepish grin and shrug. "Can you blame me for liking it here?" was the best answer he could find.

"Nope. I like it too. I always have, but I like it better since you came. The house was too quiet before I left for India." She nudged his knee with one foot. "You stay at home too much, and then when you go out you come back dead sober but reeking like a bar. You've got that guitar over there but I've never heard you play it. Sometimes you leave in the middle of the day, which is kind of unheard of for my mother's house employees unless they're running errands for her, but she doesn't bat an eyelash. What's up with you, Jasper Whitlock? What's your story? If you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine, and we can decide which one's more interesting."

"That's easy. I can tell you now, mine's the boring one." Jasper meant it, too. There was nothing about his personal history that hadn't appeared a thousand times in a thousand novels, nothing that would inspire wonder or confusion.

"Tell me over dinner," she suggested. "Tonight."

Jasper felt his eyes go wide. "I don't know if your mom would be too happy with that idea."

"What, because I'm 'fraternizing with the help'?" she teased. When he nodded, she rolled her eyes. "We're not living in the nineteenth century, Jasper. I think she'll trust me to handle it if we go out to dinner and we enjoy the experience."

Just to be sure, he checked with his employer before they left that night. Mrs. McCarty merely gave him an eagle-eyed stare and a regal nod in reply to his hesitantly worded query.

He'd been afraid that Alice would take him to an expensive restaurant where he could possibly afford a side salad and a glass of water, or, worse, that she would bear the cost of both their dinners. Instead, she drove her mother's Mercedes to Rock Bottom Brewery in Bellevue and airily told the server, "We'll have separate checks," before ordering beer.

Jasper ordered Coke, and they waited in comfortable silence until the waiter set their glasses down before them and left them to their menus.

Examining the entrees, Jasper beat Alice to the punch and asked, "So, you first?"

She didn't ask what he meant, for which he was grateful. After all, this whole thing had been her idea. It had been so long since the last time he sat opposite a woman near his own age that he almost couldn't remember the second most recent occasion. Of course, the fact that it had only been two months into his sobriety might have had something to do with it, too.

Pretending to give the appetizer insert her full attention, she replied casually, "I was a hooker."

Jasper was everlastingly grateful that he had nothing in his mouth at that moment, because it would have ended up blocking his airway or sprayed across the table and her face. "You _what_?"

"You heard me. I'll have the Blue Cheese Chips to start, please," she said, a little louder, without looking up. Surprised, Jasper saw that the server had been walking by just as she spoke. "I was a hooker. I grew up near Biloxi, Mississippi. Escatawpa, actually. It was just me and my mom until I was twelve, but then she met my stepfather. It gets dark; are you sure you want to hear the rest?"

Jasper could handle dark, and he knew better than most how unshared night could grow to consume every speck of light inside a person. "Yes."

"Everybody around there, just about, is religious, or at least grew up in church. But Hal was something else again. He was a member of the Baptist religion—that's how he described it—and he thought I should be a pastor's wife because I had a calling. I didn't mind too much when he made me go to youth group and take piano lessons, but I put my foot down when he started saying I should only wear ankle-length skirts, not wear makeup, that sort of stuff. Nobody at his own _church_ dressed that way, but he said I was different. Special. Then he found out he was more right than he knew."

Alice paused while the server set a plate loaded down with chips covered in cream sauce with scallions, blue cheese, and bacon. If Jasper had entertained any suspicions that this was a romantic endeavor, they disappeared at the sight of her choice of food. After smiling and thanking their server, then asking for another moment, she flipped to the entrees section of the menu. "I had dreams. They came true, sometimes." She flicked a glance up at him from beneath her lashes as if daring him to comment. "They still do, sometimes."

Jasper knew better than to give her any sort of reaction beyond a mild, "All right, then. So what'd he do when he found out?"

"He didn't just find out. My mom told him, actually." The faintest shadow of bitterness overlaid the words. "All she had to do was keep quiet, and things would've been fine, but… it was like she was trying to get him to like her better, by telling him things he didn't even need to know. He was furious when she let him in on the secret. He took me to his pastor and tried to get him to give me an exorcism because I was possessed."

"Obviously," Jasper interjected dryly.

That actually got a faint laugh from her. "Obviously. His pastor refused, and pointed out that prophetic dreams were in the Bible, and said that maybe I had a gift from God. Hal didn't agree. He left that church, told the school district my mom was going to homeschool me, and locked me into my bedroom with nothing but a bare mattress and a Bible. When I tried to call CPS, he told me he'd do the same thing to my sister if they showed up at the house. My mom didn't do anything to stop him, but she'd bring me food sometimes when he was gone."

"You left." It wasn't a guess; he could tell Alice was too proactive to submit tamely to that sort of abuse.

Alice took a huge bite and nodded while she chewed. "I did. I climbed out the window and called CPS to report that he was abusing my sister. Then I hitched a ride and didn't stop till I got to Seattle."

"How old were you?"

"Are you guys ready to order?" their server asked, stopping beside their table with pen and pad at the ready.

Alice ordered the veggie burger. Jasper asked for the Cajun fish tacos. After she gave him a refill, the server disappeared again. "Fourteen."

For a moment, Jasper couldn't breathe. Fourteen. She was less than five feet tall, fragile as a doll made out of matchsticks, and she'd hitched her way across the country for thousands of miles. "What happened when you got here?"

"I tried to go to school, but they kept on wanting to know what my address was, and have my parents sign the forms. You know, that sort of thing. So I gave up and tried to find work, but it was almost impossible to make it. I found a job at a bodega, but it was all under the table. I lived with six other girls in a studio apartment, but then the manager found out and kicked us out for lease violation. We couldn't find another place… and then the bodega closed… and then one of our customers there asked if I wanted to make easy money." She shrugged. "It _was_ easy, once I got over the whole 'sex-with-a-stranger' thing."

"Except it really wasn't," he surmised. Alice was playing it cool, but Jasper could sense how much the recounting cost her. It was in the tightness around her mouth, the way her arms lost their usual liquid grace as she gestured, the way she drained her beer and motioned to their server for another.

"Except it really wasn't," she confirmed before taking another bite. He realized why her eating seemed familiar. He'd seen the same barely concealed desperation in the movements of the street kids in Baghdad, the lack of certainty that the next meal would come and the need to store up nourishment against the next round of deprivation. Despite the easy cash and the wealth of her current position, she'd obviously spent time hungry, and once you'd starved, you never took the regularity of your food supply for granted again.

He waited until she'd cleared half her plate and drained another pint glass before gently prodding, "How'd you get out?"

"Rose. She runs a charity in Seattle to help women leave prostitution. I showed up at the shelter one night, high and with a couple of black eyes. They knew I was underage, but I told them I'd go right back out if they called CPS, so they waited even though it's illegal. Rose visited the next day, and she took an interest in me. She got to know me, and then she helped me emancipate myself from my mom so I could legally make my own decisions. I was lucky. I wasn't an addict; I'd just used drugs to try to get through the day, so I didn't have too hard a time giving them up. I still didn't have any clue about how to live a normal grown-up life, though, and I only had a ninth-grade education, so I was lost. And then…" Her voice quavered the slightest bit. Tossing her head impatiently, she added, "She said, 'My husband and I were never blessed with children, Alice. I would be honored if you'd choose to be my daughter.'"

Well, that answered quite a few questions. Jasper slid one hand across the table to cover her own. He didn't think about the gesture until she turned her wrist and grasped his fingers. Trying to lighten the mood, he grinned and told her, "You win. I'm telling you, that story beats mine all hollow."

She snorted, and asked him to tell his own tale, but he just shook his head at her, saying, "That's enough hurt for one night. Eat your food." To his surprise, she didn't quibble with the order, but dropped the subject and kept conversation light for the rest of the evening. When they got back to the house on Mercer Island, she kissed his cheek and walked away from him toward her room without a backward glance.

**~*O*O*~**

For a day or two, Jasper wondered if he'd made a mistake going out with Alice, or if maybe she'd been offended by his failure to similarly bare his past for inspection. On Monday, though, she showed up in the bedroom while he was scraping the walls and struck up a conversation about his favorite musicians as if nothing had happened. She seemed determined not to allow him to consign her to the background of his mental landscape again. On Tuesday she joined him at breakfast, and on Wednesday she brought his guitar outside while he was smoking and demanded a song. He obeyed, but only after going back in so the dampness didn't affect the strings.

Once he was seated in front of the fireplace in the family room, he launched into "You Don't Understand Me" without really thinking about it, just because he'd been listening to The Raconteurs on his iPod before she'd opened the door. He got to _And maybe I just don't see the reason / But in the corner of my heart your ignorance is treason,_ and that was when her wide-eyed stare told him she might be taking the song as a message. His fingers fumbled a little on the frets, but he managed to sing all the way to _And I don't claim to understand you / But I've been looking around / And I haven't found anybody like you_ before he felt a blush creep up his neck and heat his ears. He finished it out, though, and pretended like nothing had happened.

She clapped wildly as he laid the guitar back in its case, enthusing, "That was fantastic! Now, do you know anything by Enrique Iglesias?" At his look of blank-faced horror, she burst into uncontrollable laughter. "Kidding. Kidding."

While he was brushing his teeth just before midnight, he heard a knock at his bedroom door. He rinsed and spit, and then opened the door to find Alice waiting for him in a silky robe under which she may or may not have been naked. She walked past him, cool as you please.

When she spoke, though, her words were anything but cool. "I know you've been hoping you could keep pretending I'm nothing but part of the package that comes with the house, but I don't think that's what I'm supposed to be to you." This was the first time he'd seen her in short sleeves, and the faint tracks of needle marks on her inner arm showed as she wrung her hands before her. "I'm clean, Jasper. I was tested, and retested, and retested… I can show you the results myself. It's a miracle, but I'm clean…"

He thought she meant she was sober, until he put two and two together and realized she thought he was hesitant because he thought she might have caught an STI in her old life. "No," he contradicted, a little more forcefully than he intended, striding across the room and almost reaching for her before he thought better of it. "No, it's not that."

"I know it's not that you don't like me," she whispered, searching his face with those huge eyes that saw too much. "And you know now that my mother doesn't have a problem with it."

Her skin looked like porcelain in the faint lamplight. Jasper clasped his hands behind his back to remind himself not to touch. "It's definitely not that I don't like you."

"You're afraid," she realized.

Before he could stop her, assuming his better impulses would have won out, she reached up and curved her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him down, and he obeyed because he was stupid like that. The instant she stood on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to his, he knew what a mistake it was. That didn't stop him from parting his lips and greeting her tongue with his own. She seemed strangely tentative, allowing him to set the pace even though she'd initiated the contact. Jasper clutched at his own hands until he could feel his knuckles strain under the pressure, exerting the fraction of self-control still at his disposal to keep from grabbing and lifting her. He wanted those lithe dancer's legs wrapped around his waist so badly it was going to kill him to pull away. Instead, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the softness of her lips, the slide of her tongue alongside his, the way her breath tickled his cheek, the tiny whimper she made when he silently convinced her to open wider to him.

Her free hand came to rest on his bare chest, and when he heard himself groan Jasper realized he was dangerously close to losing it. Just from a kiss. Pathetic.

She grazed his lower lip with her teeth. He yanked himself back before he could give in to the urge to throw her onto the bed.

They stared at each other, chests heaving with breath that sounded harsh in the otherwise silent room.

Alice spoke as soon as he opened his mouth. "Take me shopping for Christmas gifts tomorrow. I'll tell Mom I need you to help me with the boxes."

Jasper knew, because Mrs. McCarty had mentioned it at dinner two weeks previously, that the entire McCarty gift list had been taken care of thanks to the wonders of Amazon, but he heard himself say, "All right. And then I'll take you for dinner."

"A date?" she checked, a nervous smile tugging at the edge of her lips.

"A date," he confirmed, feeling the same uncertain twitch at the corners of his mouth.  
  


**~*O*O*~**

The next day saw him following Alice around with an increasingly tall stack of parcels and bags in his arms. Alice was a hunter, not a gatherer, when it came to shopping: she knew exactly what she wanted, where to find it, and to whom it would be given. She rattled off the designer names the way other people said, "Wal-Mart," and once again he marveled at the fact that she hadn't been born to the life she now led.

As she went, she'd throw tidbits about herself over her shoulder like a woman cleaning out her purse threw out the things she didn't need anymore.

"When I was ten I knew I wanted to be a fashion designer. When I was eighteen I knew I wanted to buy other people's designs instead."

"Once I dreamed a friend of mine killed herself. When I ran over to her house that night, she told me that I was nuts, and I felt so stupid I didn't talk to her for days. Two weeks later she did it."

"I hate vanilla ice cream. It's offensive in its inoffensiveness. It shouldn't be allowed to call itself a flavor."

She didn't bother to ask him any questions, as if she knew that the moment she did ask he'd withdraw or redirect her. At five o'clock, though, when they piled the packages into the trunk of the Mercedes, she turned to him and said, "Now it's your turn," and he knew he could no longer escape. He put it off for as long as he could, though, directing her to Lynn's Bistro in Kirkland and letting the holiday traffic occupy her attention. They had to wait, so occupied their time looking in the little galleries that dotted the Kirkland landscape, which meant that Alice picked up a couple of paintings. It was then that Jasper realized she must have had a hand in decorating his bedroom.

Once they were seated at the table and had ordered, Alice turned a gimlet eye in his direction and said, "You kept me waiting long enough."

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Jasper replied, the mildest sarcasm he could manage. She smiled, but didn't look away. "I bet you already know some of it."

"You're an alcoholic."

"Recovering." He was about to continue when his phone rang. "Excuse me." The number had a Texas area code, and wasn't saved in his contact list, which sent a pang of disquiet through him. It had been so long since anyone besides Edward had called, though, that he couldn't make himself ignore it. "One second," he said into the phone after hitting "accept," and strode outside. "Hello?"

"Hey LT."

It took a second to place the voice, and when he did, Jasper inhaled sharply with shock. "Pete? What the fuck? How you doin', _jefe_? It's been six months!"

"'M okay, I guess," Peter replied, but the hurriedness of the words told Jasper the truth.

"Bullshit. Where's Lotta?"

"I, uh, she's around, she's upset so I dunno, I heard her talking to her mom but it was all in Swedish so I guess she's pissed or something."

Peter's girlfriend was as low-maintenance as they came, so if she was calling home to Sweden things were really bad. "What's goin' on, man?" As usual when he talked to someone from home, Jasper heard his speech elongating, the sharpness of words fading into a liquid flow that slid from his lips so much more easily.

"I just, uh, I heard from Caceres' mom."

A cold chill shot through Jasper's entire body, all the way into the soles of his feet. "His _mom_?"

"Yeah, she called me 'cause she knew we were buds and… shit. Shit, LT."

Jasper could feel the truth already, but he forced himself to say it. "He's dead."

"Shot himself in the fucking head."

Goddamn it. "Are you okay?"

"I dunno. I dunno. It just… I feel like maybe I should just get it over with, you know? Like it's gonna happen no matter what, so might as well give up on putting it off."

Jasper's tongue went thick with panic. He forced it to move anyway. "Nah, _jefe_. Nah, you can't do that. If you do, it's gonna ruin your mama. It'll ruin Lotta. And it's gonna fuck me up too, Pete. You matter, man. Don't do that shit. It's not doomed to happen or some bullshit. When's the last time you went to group?"

"Two weeks ago."

"Go to a meeting tomorrow morning if you can. Ask your primary care doc if you can step up group therapy for a while. Maybe see if they can fit you in for individual stuff a little more often for a month."

"Okay."

"And get Lotta. Y'all need to get out of the house. Go see your mama. You know she loves it when y'all drop in."

"Yeah, all right. I'll do that."

"Don't be alone. And _don't use._ "

"I won't. I talked to my sponsor already. He's at work but we're gettin' together tomorrow."

"All right. Y'all take care, Pete. Call me tomorrow after you hang with your sponsor."

Jasper hung up the phone with shaking hands, shoved it into his pocket, and wiped his palms on his jeans before heading back into the restaurant. Alice hadn't waited for his return to start digging in, for which he was grateful.

"Bad news?" she asked when she saw his face.

"Yeah," he said, taking his seat.

She raised her eyebrows, but when he didn't elaborate, continued eating without further questions. He was grateful for that, too.

"You don't need this job," she commented after a moment.

He couldn't deny it, so simply agreed. "No."

"All your clothes are old, but they're quality. You come from money."

Jasper started laughing, and went on too long, but she didn't stare or make him feel stupid for it, so he was able to cut it off before it turned uncomfortable. "You ever heard of Wade Whitlock?"

Her eyes, always huge, widened until they seemed to take over her face. "The cattle man?"

"Cattle, oil, microprocessors," he listed, forcing himself to take a bite of his seafood fettuccini. "He's my dad."

Alice swallowed her tiger prawn and gaped. "Wade Whitlock is your _father_? Oh my Lord."

"Yup."

"Oh my _Lord_! Well, that explains your unironic cowboy boots. Is he really running for president next election?"

Jasper snorted in derision. "Nah, he likes to be the power _behind_ the throne. Gets more done."

"Your older brother's going to be governor," she stated matter-of-factly.

Staring, Jasper swallowed and asked, "How did you… yeah. Edward's gonna be governor, but not for at least ten more years."

"I know. He's a doctor, though, right?"

"And a state senator. He's on the insurance committee, as a matter of fact."

"Nice." Alice waited, and when he didn't elaborate, said, "You're not in any of the family businesses."

"Nope. I'm the baby, and the fuck up," he explained with a shrug. "Second sons in the Whitlock family always go into the army. It's been that way since the Revolutionary War."

"You did go to the army, though, right? You walk like a soldier."

He gave her half a smile. "Yes ma'am, I did. I did some pretty important shit, I guess. Went to Baghdad."

She stopped eating and gave him a piercing stare. After a moment of silence, she guessed—it had to be a guess, right?—"Somebody you loved got killed."

Breathing became difficult as the faces flashed in front of his mind's eye—the faces and the names. He remembered them all because they died in his dreams at least a couple times a week. "A lot of somebodies." He wasn't supposed to love his men but he did anyway, hard as he tried not to do so, even the assholes like Scott. They were mostly poor or lower middle-class, mostly just trying to get through their tour so they could get out and have their college paid for. He wasn't supposed to love the locals but Fatima, Rania, Abdullah, and the other children on the street had made that impossible, and Mariam… Mariam…

"It wasn't supposed to be the way it was," he told her memory, momentarily forgetting Alice was listening in on the conversation. "I was supposed to be there to help." It had all been okay until that day when Mariam walked unsteadily to greet him and before she got within fifty feet the metal detector had gone off and he'd known, he'd known, but he hadn't had the guts to lift his fucking gun and pull the goddamned trigger…

Peter had done it for him. Peter was his Staff Sergeant and Peter was the one who wanted to pull the trigger next to his own head now.

"You _were_ there to help," Alice responded, her voice filled with compassion, and he started out of his daze to focus on her once more. "What your superiors did with your presence wasn't your fault."

She'd been drugged, the doctors had told him later. Her vest hadn't deployed when she fell because Peter had taken the head shot, so they'd done an autopsy, and Mariam had been drugged, just like other teenage girls they'd been hearing about, other girls who had no education and were from the country and easily duped…

"Right," he agreed. The food looked disgusting now, so he pushed it to the side. "I couldn't take it. When I got back I started drinking way too much. I mean, I always drank a lot, but I could handle it, until I couldn't anymore. I got into rehab because my dad told me that if I didn't he'd cut me off. He didn't really give a shit about the drinking, but I was in Austin so stuff was starting to turn up in the papers and on local blogs, and Edward was pissed too. Doesn't look so good for the future governor when his brother's out till five in the morning getting off his ass drunk and then trying to drive home. Looks even worse when he doesn't pay his rent and ends up on the street." Alice winced, and Jasper nodded. "I didn't give a shit anymore. But rehab turned out to be the best thing that could've happened, so I got clean."

"That was how long ago?" she asked, still rhythmically lifting her food to her mouth.

"Four years."

She sat back in apparent confusion. "Then what's going on? Why are you working for my mother?"

Laughing genuinely, Jasper took a sip of his soda. "I had a fight with Dad." She laughed, too. "He wanted me to pick one of the businesses to focus on since I'd washed out of the army. Honorable discharge translates to 'washing out' to Wade. So I looked around, and I figured out that he'd funded the campaigns of a bunch of politicians who were in favor of keeping troops over there. I told Dad I wouldn't be making money for him if he wanted to turn around and funnel it that direction. He didn't like that, said I could go ahead and try to make it on my own if I thought I was such a big man." Jasper shrugged again. "I probably could've, except he blacklisted me. Made sure everyone who thought of hiring me knew my past. The bad parts of my past, anyhow. When he considered I'd been punished enough, he called your mom and asked if I could be her handyman. She said yes. I was sick of not working so I cooperated."

Her eyebrows were now adjacent to her hairline. "Whoa, doggy. Wade ain't kidding around."

He laughed again at the southernisms; he'd missed that sort of talk more than he'd realized till just now. "He sure as hell ain't. I've got money of my own, though, thanks to my mama's Aunt Esme. She left me her entire estate. It's not much, but it's enough."

"Hmmm." Alice seemed about to add something, but then her eyes widened and every bit of color drained out of her face until the veins stood out blue against the china-white.

"Mary," purred a low male voice. Jasper twisted to see a tall man in a flashy suit, big gold chain, and shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest standing behind him. The man flipped his long blond ponytail over his shoulder as he continued, "Been a long time since I saw you around, baby girl."

"James," she said, but it came out sounding like, "death."

"You need to leave," Jasper ordered, clutching the edges of the table to hold himself seated. Everything in him shouted at him to punch this slick fucker in the face, but he didn't want to embarrass Alice. He could feel her panicked humiliation spilling from her like a glass tipped over on the table.

"You got a boyfriend?" James asked, flicking a disinterested glance over Jasper. Jasper took deep breaths as he noticed that the other man's eyes surveyed the world through the hazy remoteness of the drug-addled.

"Yeah." Jasper forced his hand to let go of the table's edge and reach for Alice's. She turned her fingers to grasp his in the center. "She's got a boyfriend."

"All right then. Nice to see you." He wandered out slowly, a woman prancing on three-inch heels behind him.

"I didn't think Kirkland had that sort of—hey, are you okay?" Jasper demanded as Alice's hand went colder in his own. When she didn't answer, he squeezed her fingers. "Hey, Alice. Come back."

A faint sheen of sweat glistened in the low light as she shook her head. "I didn't go with him." Her lips had gone blue, and she spoke as though they were numb.

"You're in shock." Jasper dug his wallet out with his free hand and tossed some bills onto the table. "C'mon, let's go."

"Don't want to see him," she muttered, rising and allowing him to drape her Valentino trench over her slight shoulders.

"He's gone."

"I'm so cold."

"It's okay," he told her, hustling to the door to hold it open for her. "I'll keep you warm."

He'd meant it purely in the "I'll make sure you stay in warm places and go home to your undoubtedly cozy bed" way. However, once the door swung shut behind them, she turned into his chest. His arms closed around her without his conscious approval, but she didn't seem to mind.

"I don't want to talk about it." Her breath came in rapid, shallow pants, heating the thin fabric of his shirt exposed by his open coat.

"That's fine. You don't have to." He already knew everything he needed to know.

"Can you drive me home?"

"I'm sorry, darlin', but I can't. I'm not safe behind the wheel." The last time he'd driven, Edward had been in the car, and once he'd blown through two four-way stops and kept a steady speed of twenty-five miles per hour for five miles, his brother had demanded he surrender his driver's license. He hadn't been drunk; it was just that the tours in Iraq had made it _so hard_ to drive normally anymore. "Let's get in the car."

"No." She turned and strode away with wobbly steps, despite the fact that her shoes had no high heels. Jasper walked behind her, unsure of what he should offer besides his presence to guard her back.

Alice kept walking for hours, until his fingers were numb with cold and the arches of his feet burned with the strain. When she finally sat down in a boarded-over doorway on the outskirts of Totem Lake, he sat down next to her with a sigh of gratitude. She cuddled up to his side. He held her close to him.

"Bet you thought you were more messed up than me," she said finally.

"Nah, I pretty much figure we're all the same level of fucked-up. Some of us're better at hiding it than others, is all."

She chuckled, and went silent again.

After a few minutes, Jasper checked the crook of his arm to find that she had fallen asleep. Moving carefully, he lifted her cell phone from the pocket of her coat with two fingers and scrolled down to the number of the house on Mercer Island. When the voice mail picked up, he left a message for Mrs. McCarty and then hung up, settling back against the wall to keep watch over the tiny woman curled against him.

**~*O*O*~**

The next morning, Alice awoke, stood, and held out her hand. He'd fully expected her to shrink away from him. Her silent request for his accompaniment gave him a shock of feeling dangerously similar to hope.

Once behind the wheel, she asked, "Did you sleep at all?"

"No, but that's nothin' new." He dared to glance at her, enjoying the way her hair curved in baby-fine tendrils against the nape of her neck under the other spiky strands. "I probably sleep well one night out of three. PTSD."

"Yeah, me too." She glanced to where they still held hands on the seat between them while he considered the fact that she'd slept like a baby at his side. Her next question surprised him. "How old do you think I am?"

"Twenty-three?" he guessed, rounding up from his actual estimate.

She shook her head. "I'm twenty-eight. I _knew_ you thought I was younger than my real age. It's this damn pixie face, and the toothpick body. How old are you?"

"Thirty-four." She gave a satisfied nod, and Jasper felt compelled to point out, "It's still a gap."

"Six years is just right," Alice said firmly. He knew then that she'd made up her mind.

The problem was, Jasper hadn't. He knew she sensed it by the careful way she watched him, the way she didn't initiate any conversations, the way she talked around him to her mother at dinner. She was waiting for him to make a decision before she plotted her course of action. He'd learned to read her at least that well.

On Christmas day, Wade called after dinner. Jasper answered warily. "Hello, Dad."

"Son. Merry Christmas." His father's deep voice reverberated through the phone. Jasper missed him with a sudden intense pang—not the Wade he knew now, but the father who'd always seemed so invincible, so omniscient, who used to throw Jasper so high into the air that his mother would joke he left blond hair on the ceiling. He missed the father he'd thought he possessed when he was five years old, rather than the man he'd discovered him to be as an adult.

"Merry Christmas. How're y'all doing?"

"Just fine, just fine." A brief pause, and then Wade got down to business. "I got a proposition, if you're interested."

Despite himself, Jasper perked up. "I'm listening." There was only so much mental stimulation one could get from remodeling, after all, and the constant rain wasn't helping the growing sense of frustration.

Wade spoke clearly and concisely, as was his way. Jasper heard him out and asked for a week to consider the notion. After his father agreed, they hung up. Jasper wandered into the entertainment room, where Alice was watching a movie he'd never seen before.

"What's this?" he asked, more because he had nothing else to say than because he actually wanted to know.

"The movie I was in," she responded with a mischievous smile, clearly anticipating his response.

Jasper stared at the plasma screen, trying to figure out what was going on. There were three people who looked Indian, dressed in blonde wigs and blue contacts, surrounded by white people dressed in brightly colored outfits, dancing and singing in a language he didn't understand. "What're they saying?"

Alice pointed at the Indian girl wearing a red dress, and big sunglasses. "She's singing that when she sees a white face, her heart begins to dance." She started laughing before she finished speaking.

Jasper sputtered, " _What_?" Then, as she was about to answer, "Holy shit, that's you!"

"Told you," she said with satisfaction, watching her image gyrating around in a skimpy outfit with a yellow bikini top and sparkly red skirt.

"They're horrible dancers."

"They're thieves who're escaping the police by pretending to be in a movie song number. It's satirical. The Hindi film industry has been catering more and more to metropolitan audiences who speak English, and using white girls to dance because they'll wear tiny outfits without worrying about being considered sluts. This song's pointing out what's wrong with that idea considering it's an industry that's supposed to cater to Hindi-speaking people who are still largely conservative outside the big cities. Here, I'll turn on the subtitles."

The subtitles didn't help much, but Jasper was sucked in despite himself and sat next to her for the rest of the film, all two hours that were left. She explained the concepts the film was parodying, since she'd gotten to understand a little bit about them during the two years she'd spent in India. At the end credits, though, she hit "mute" on the remote and turned to him. "Tell me what's up. You're not really here; you're a thousand miles away."

"Wade called and offered me a job today. VP of marketing at one of the companies; whichever one I wanted, as a matter of fact. Said he figures I've learned my lesson and that there's no sense in hard-headedness."

"Is that what your degree's in?" she asked.

"Hard-headedness or marketing?"

She rolled her eyes. "Marketing."

With a mirthless chuckle, he nodded. "Sure thing. I could get you to buy ice in the middle of a hailstorm. I'm a persuasive sumbitch, lemme tell you."

She swallowed. "You're considering it."

"I'd be lying if I told you I was doing my best work here, much as I appreciate your mom's pay."

Alice's face didn't show anything other than concern, but he could feel the hurt pouring from her. Abruptly, he realized she was more than interested in him. She was invested.

"I wish you wouldn't go," she said in a small voice. His heart contracted at the uncertainty in her tone. "I think if you'd decide to stay, you'd keep a lot more of your self-respect in the long run. Money's important, but I think you seem like the sort of person who'd end up despising himself if he took money for an employer he actively disagreed with."

That was brave. That was the sort of straight talk he was only used to hearing in meetings.

"I'm not trustworthy, though. I'm selfish, because I want you to stay here so we'll be near each other. Even if you decide we're not supposed to be together." With a half-smile, she lowered her gaze as she looked at her lap. "I was trying to wait till you thought it through before I let myself want that. I guess it didn't work."

"You always wait on other people to make up your mind for you?"

She shrugged with one tiny shoulder. "I can't _make_ you be with me. That's your choice. But if you go, I can pretty much guarantee we won't be together, because my life is here, and India."

"What do you do in India?" he asked. It struck him as odd that he hadn't asked before, but then again he had enjoyed the illusion that she was part and parcel of the McCarty employment deal.

"Work with children who've been freed from sex slavery. It's a not-for-profit organization my mother funds. I'm just here on furlough—and to fundraise—till February."

That made sense. She was so amazing; she'd been taken advantage of, and then given every advantage, and instead of living the rich daughter's life she could have had, she chose to give back to the powerless.

Her eyes were huge and hurt in the blue light glowing from the screen. In the back of his mind rang the childish sentiment, _kiss it and make it better,_ so he leaned forward and softly put his mouth on hers. Instantly he knew that he was doing this more for his own sake than hers, especially when she fisted his flannel shirt in both hands and pulled him nearer. Jasper braced his arm on the back of the couch to remind himself not to overlay her and gave in, kissing her back so hard his lips ached. He didn't care, and she didn't seem to either, rising up on her knees to bury one hand in his hair as she widened her mouth to practically inhale him.

For countless minutes, he lost himself in the feel of her skin—fuck, it'd been so long since he slept with a woman that even the way her hair tickled his cheek felt incredible. When she yanked his t-shirt out of his pants and slid her palms across his stomach, up to his chest, he made a noise against her mouth and then pulled back. "Alice…"

She snatched her hands back as if he'd burned her. "Yeah?"

Jasper wanted to soothe any insecurity she might be feeling, but he wasn't sure if it would come across as complimenting the experience she'd garnered as a hooker. The only thing he could think to say was, "This probably isn't the best place for messing around."

Alice nodded slowly. "You're right." She stared through him for a second, and he could tell she was making a decision. Finally she added, "You should just come up to my room."

When she grabbed his hand again, he rose to follow her. As they climbed the stairs, Jasper felt detached from his actions, as though he was watching another man walk behind a beautiful girl to her bedroom.

 _What am I doing?_ he wondered, obeying the gentle tug of her hand as she stepped inside and then standing there as she shut the door behind him. The room was pitch-black, but she turned on a bedside lamp before he even realized she moved.

"I'm not doing this to persuade you to stay," she told him, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I'm doing it because I think we should be together, even if it's just for a little while."

It had never occurred to Jasper that she might have been ready to sleep with him as an attempt at manipulation. Suddenly he was fully present, in the moment, grounded by her words. "I know you better than that," he chided, moving to stand between her legs.

"Maybe I had to convince myself," she replied with a sideways smile, and leaned back on her hands to allow him access to her buttons. Jasper took a deep breath and actually had to center himself the way he once had before combat. When he was sure his hands would remain steady, he began opening her shirt. Each successive inch of skin exposed made the fire in his blood flare until, when he drew the top down her arms, he found himself swallowing against the burn.

Alice was well-endowed for such a slight woman. Jasper slid his hands up her ribs to cup her breasts through her bra, surprised and aroused even more by the weight against his palms. She laid her hand over one of his, pushing down. He took the cue and firmed his grip as he stepped a little closer and kissed her. She whimpered against his lips. The vulnerability of the sound made his heart stutter. Alice made the same sound again and edged backward, drawing him with her as she scooted farther onto the bed and lay back, never losing the contact between their mouths.

Jasper had never been with a woman who'd been sexually victimized before—at least, not one who had let him know about it—and the pressure was making him tentative. Probably he shouldn't have her half-naked while he stayed clothed, though, so he took off his shirt too. Her skin felt softer than her satin sheets against his own.

He felt like all his words had been stolen from him; what if he unwittingly repeated praise a client of hers had given her, or did something that triggered a traumatic memory? Here in the quiet of her room, he was safe from such provocations, but he had no clue about the monsters that revisited her in the night. Then again, he couldn't let her think she wasn't every bit as amazing and beautiful as he knew her to be. In the end, he decided he'd let her take charge so she could show him what she liked, and rolled to his back, bringing her with him.

Alice shivered and moved to kiss her way to his earlobe, drawing it between her teeth. Jasper dug his hands into her hips. When she edged her teeth down his neck, the melting heat that spread through his body gave him the courage to risk gasping, "Fuck, Alice, that feels so good. You're killing me."

She sat up with a grin. "Really?"

"Really." He reached behind her to unclasp her bra, happily surprised that the skill hadn't left him. Her eagerness in helping him shed it made him smile. The sight of her breasts, though, had him praising on an exhale, "Pretty girl."

Alice traced his chest and stomach with eager fingertips. Jasper found himself glad about the fact that he'd spent the past couple of months mostly engaged in physical labor, especially when she flicked an arch glance up at him beneath her lashes. "You're looking pretty good yourself, there, Whitlock."

Her confidence gave him back some of his own. He slid her up so that he could take one pert nipple into his mouth. She cried out, sinking her nails into his skin as he licked and sucked. He switched to the other side, and she started squirming and moaning his name. He kept going till she begged, "Jasper, _please._ "

Chuckling, he pulled her back down, reveling in the way her hair fell on either side of his face as she kissed him back, the way her nipples brushed his chest as she moved, and the heat that built low in his stomach as she ground her pelvis against him. Her slender fingers worked their way between them, fumbling with his pants button until she got it open and she could reach in. Jasper groaned when she pulled back his boxers' elastic and grasped his cock. She ducked down to take the tip inside her mouth, and a bolt of electric sensation shot up his backbone to buzz at the base of his skull. "Stop, stop, darlin', don't do that or I'm afraid you'll be disappointed," he begged, probably gripping her hair too hard but _shit._

She didn't look disappointed, though, as she wriggled out of her own pants, followed by her thong, which was a bit of a shame. "I don't think that's possible."

"I'm guessing you'd like it to last longer than thirty seconds," he joked, taking the opportunity to remove the rest of his clothes too.

She gave him a puzzled look. "How long has it _been,_ Jaz?"

He shrugged, watching as she reached to her bedside drawer and, removing a condom, tore open the packet to roll it onto his length. "My sponsor told me to keep it in my pants for a while when I got sober. I didn't listen and it was one big clusterfuck, so after that I paid attention." At her continued silence, he gave in and said, "Four years, almost."

"Holy shit." She thought about that for a moment, and then offered a slow smile. "So basically I'm the best thing that's happened to you in bed since you hit your thirties. Excellent."

Jasper laughed out loud at that, a sound that turned into an unmanly yelp when she lowered herself onto him without warning. She went slow, and was tight enough to tell him that it'd been a while for her, too. Once he was fully engulfed in her wet warmth, though, he could barely keep himself in check enough to ask, "We good?"

"Yes," she sighed, eyes drifting closed as she leaned forward and gripped his shoulders. "So, so good, Jaz."

Jasper knew he should let her continue to set the pace, but when she started moving again his body wouldn't let him lie still. As his hips lifted, he pushed her up a little so that he could slide one hand down to where they came together. When she realized where he was headed, Alice helped him out, holding his fingers and angling them to the right spot. He brushed her clit and, as the contact made her tighten inside, did it again, this time circling more firmly. Alice urged him on with moans and "yes," and "just like that, don't stop" until after what seemed like forever she shuddered and started clenching in hot spasms that were better than he remembered. Finally he felt okay to grab her and start thrusting. She ran her tongue across his chest and bit him and that was it, he was finished, coming so hard he saw fireworks behind his closed eyelids.

Once he took care of the condom, he came back to cuddle her, pulling her back to his front in approved spoon fashion. As her body became limper in his arms, he warned, "I'm fixin' to fall asleep, sweetheart."

"Go ahead," she invited, and reached to turn off the light.

**~*O*O*~**

The next week passed in a blur of work and post-holiday shopping and Mrs. McCarty pointedly not commenting on the fact that her daughter had started holding hands with the help at dinner. Of course, at night either he was in Alice's bed or she was in his. The sex seemed to wrap him in a cocoon of isolation, leaving room in his consciousness for only Alice, her soft body and her sharp wit and her way of making him reconsider the things he'd thought were the most important. He didn't want to leave her, but in the past his emotional nakedness had led to making poor choices. He'd once heard an old-timer joke about it at an AA meeting: "An alcoholic is missing their emotional padding. It's like God's at the assembly line putting that shit in, and, 'Hey God.' 'What?' And the one he missed is the alcoholic." Jasper had laughed, but it was depressingly accurate.

On New Year's Eve, he got Alice a present. He wasn't sure she was the type of girl who liked presents—she seemed so particular about everything she owned, and a gift might be too chancy—but he saw his opportunity and couldn't resist. When he showed up at the house, though, Mrs. McCarty waylaid him.

"Mr. Whitlock, I have to speak to you about your continued employment here."

Jasper felt his throat twist with shock and fear.

After she said her piece and he said his, he continued up to Alice's room and knocked. She invited him in without hesitation.

Jasper sat next to Alice on the bed, turning the box in his hands over and over again. At last, she put her hand over his, stilling the motion. "You're leaving."

He nodded. "I have to. It's… I can't keep doing this. And it's not good for us to be living together, not yet."

Alice withdrew, folding up her legs beneath her chin and hugging her knees. "Not ever."

With a frown, Jasper turned. When he saw the desolation on her face, he said, "No. No, sweetheart, no. It's not what you're thinking."

"How do you know?" she demanded, but her voice had gone wavery. Her eyes swam with unshed tears.

"I hope it isn't anyway, because it shouldn't make you cry. I'm moving out because I can't be dependent on the mother of my girl for shelter, that's all. I decided today that I should get my own place, so I signed a lease on an apartment down in Kirkland."

For once, Alice seemed taken completely by surprise. She gaped for a full minute, until he started to wonder if maybe he should call for help. Before he got up, though, she flung herself at him with enough force to knock him on his back. "Jaz!"

With a laugh, Jasper pulled her head down and kissed her temple. "Silly girl. You really think I was leaving you like that?"

"I don't know," she mumbled into his neck. "It didn't seem like you had much to stay for."

"I've got you." She pulled back, frowning. "But that's not the only thing I've got. Your mom offered me something else. A new job. Did you put her up to it?"

"No, I haven't discussed you with her at all. What kind of job?"

"She wants me to start working for the same non-profit you do. She wants me to start helping with fundraising, functions, stuff like that. She said fond as she is of my father, she can't imagine that working for him would be a profitable venture for his own son."

Alice laughed. "I don't think it would be, either."

He kissed her again. "Gotcha something today."

"You got me a present?" She sat up, clasping her hands eagerly. "What is it?"

"Open it and find out, sweetheart." He handed the box over.

When she opened it, she went silent again. This time he didn't panic, just waited her out. At last, she spoke. "This is the key to your new apartment."

"Sure enough is. I don't want you to have to ask before you come in. At least, I hope you'll be coming in."

Alice carefully set it onto the nightstand and then straddled him, combing through his hair with one hand. "I'll be there as often as you want me. You'll start thinking I came with the place."

"Perfect." He caressed her cheek. "Because I've gotten pretty used to having you around."


End file.
